ayatri only, and charity and feeding of animals are
casual and uncertain."

Quite different from this simple daily ancestral offering is the
Pit_ri_ya_gn_a or Pi_nd_a-pit_ri_ya_gn_a, which forms part of many of
the statutable sacrifices, and, first of all, of the New and Full-moon
sacrifice. Here again the human motive is intelligible enough. It was
the contemplation of the regular course of nature, the discovery of
order in the coming and going of the heavenly bodies, the growing
confidence in some ruling power of the world which lifted man's
thoughts from his daily work to higher regions, and filled his heart
with a desire to approach these higher powers with praise,
thanksgiving, and offerings. And it was at such moments as the waning
of the moon that his thoughts would most naturally turn to those whose
life had waned, whose bright faces were no longer visible on earth,
his fathers or ancestors. Therefore at the very beginning of the
New-moon sacrifice, we are told in the Brahma_n_as[300] and in the
_S_rauta-sutras, that a Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, a sacrifice to the Fathers, has
to be performed. A _K_aru or pie had to be prepared in the
Dakshi_n_agni, the southern fire, and the offerings, consisting of
water and round cakes (pi_nd_as), were specially dedicated to father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather, while the wife of the sacrificer,
if she wished for a son, was allowed to eat one of the cakes.[301]

Similar ancestral offerings took place during other sacrifices too, of
which the New and Full-moon sacrifices form the general type.

It may be quite true that these two kinds of ancestral sacrifices have
the same object and share the same name, but their character is
different; and if, as has often been the case, they are mixed up
together, we lose the most important lessons which a study of the
ancient ceremonial should teach us. I cannot describe the difference
between these two Pit_ri_ya_gn_as more decisively than by pointing out
that the former was performed by the father of a family, or, if we may
say so, by a layman, the latter by a regular priest, or a class of
priests, selected by the sacrificer to act in his behalf. As the
Hindus themselves would put it, the former is a g_ri_hya, a domestic,
the latter a _s_rauta, a priestly ceremony.[302]

We now come to a third class of ceremonies which are likewise domestic
and personal, but which differ from the two preceding ceremonies by
their occasional character, I me